Best Way To Protect Your Files From Being Copied

Couple of years ago I made this piece of software that protects my i-cafe from thieves who copies data from my cafe.

Are you annoyed with people, especially competitors, that will copy your hard-earned updated games, software, and other data? Well, I am.

Like I was, you probably are thinking on how to stop them. But there is a better way than preventing these people from copying your files. I realized the best thing to do is to actually let these thieves copy it. But the copied version will be rendered useless, destroyed. The bigger files the better because it means computer usage time and more income for your shop. They will never know the whole operation. They will just wonder why it wont work in their shop..and the tendency is they will go back again and copy it.

1. Using Windows API, it notifies the program of a copy command initiated by the user.

2. The program inspects if the copy destination is an external usb drive / flash drive.

3. If the no 2 statement is correct, it checks if the file being copied is on the watch list.

4. If true, then NCF scrambles the copied version’s bytes(beginning section, middle, and end). But preserving the file’s attributes, looks and feel.

5. All the above process happens on a flash. So don’t worry, they will not notice it.🙂

Screenshot

How to use

1. After installing, run Ncfmanager.exe.

2. Add files by clicking File>Add files or ctrl+a, or by just drag n dropping files and folders into the program. Take note, dropping folders may take time depending on how many files inside the folders.

3. Click File>Save or ctrl+s.

4. Click Run>Start or ctrl+r. You will recieve a notification whether the monitoring is started or not, or look on the status bar below.

5. Close the Ncfmanager.exe

6. To stop NCF, run Ncfmanager.exe again and click Stop.

Important:

You might forget that NCF is running and you’re the one copying your files to your USB stick. We have the tendency to delete the original file after we copy them. So don’t make this mistake. NCF has no ‘restore’ function.

Disclaimer:

1. I will not be held responsible for the damages on your files resulting on the improper use of this software.

2. This software is developed for Windows 32bit platform only(particularly XP). It may or may not work on other Windows OS versions.

It’s a clever way to protect my files. Now I want to protect about 3500 files (word documents), but when I add to the list the program takes a lot, and resource-intensive. This delay is normal, or the number of files is large ?. On the other hand, only it works with copy to USB drives, but also could be expected to work for network drives sometime ?. Great job!

Thanks. Looking again at the source codes, it is possible to optimize it to be more efficient in handling large quantity of files. But due to time constraints it is not possible to release an update, but who knows. I’m glad you found it useful.
An update if possible might include copying to network drives and other copy destinations.

Hi HRG, I’m studying Information Systems Engineering and doing a project on data protection for my majors. I would love to see the code behind this piece of software. this is exactly what I was looking for! any chance that you could help me out? I would really appreciate it!